Web Analytics Consulting Carbondale IL
(217) 787-2187
Springfield, IL
(309) 243-1070
Peoria, IL
Grabbing Data from Your Business Website
Sure, you know that a website is critical to any small business or startup these days. But how closely are you monitoring whether or not your website is actually doing what it’s supposed to do?
Let’s face it, knowledge is power. The better you understand the visitors to your site, the better you’re going to be at converting them to sales, signups or whatever end goal you have for them on your site.
There are two primary methods of analyzing website performance: “log file analysis” and “page tagging.”
Log file analysis
Log files are literally text files that ‘log’ every request made by someone’s web browser to your business’ website server. Let’s just say they weren’t originally designed to help you run your business or your website, and looking at one will make your head spin.
However, any hosting service will offer at minimum a simple log file analysis tool with your hosting package, which should tell you the total number of visits to your website, pageviews, referring websites (including search engines ), some demographics (country, type of browser, operating system) of your visitors, search words used to reach your site, and details on error messages returned.
If you’re going to dive into the analytics game, dump the word “hits” from your vocabulary. “Hits” specifically means the total number of individual files requested from your server to deliver your website to a browser. So if I visit a single page on your site, and there’s an html file, a style sheet,...
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